1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to digital video processing technology, and more particularly, to a digital video target moving object segmentation method and system which is designed for processing a digital video stream for segmentation of each target moving object that appears in the video content.
2. Description of Related Art
Digital video segmentation is a digital video processing technology that is widely utilized in security monitoring systems for processing video images captured by video cameras and producing a background-erased video sequence that shows only target moving objects (such as an unauthorized intruder), while erasing all background objects (such as doors, windows, and furniture). In the case of unauthorized trespassing, the background-erased video sequence allows the security personnel to investigate the case by focusing on the image of the intruder without distractions by the background objects. Moreover, the segmentation results can be employed by other functions, such as target tracking, target description, target classification, and target recognition, in an automatic video surveillance system.
Presently, many various types of video segmentation techniques have been proposed for segmentation of moving objects in video images. These conventional techniques are capable of distinguishing moving objects from static objects in the video images; and therefore in the application of security monitoring, since an intruder is a moving object and background objects such as doors, windows, and furniture are static objects, the image of the intruder can be segmented from the background objects.
One drawback of the above-mentioned prior arts, however, is that in some cases, background objects might include moving parts, such as electrical fans with rotating blades, trees and flowers with swinging leaves and stems caused by wind, to name a few. In this case, the resultant video image will nonetheless contain images of these motional background objects together with the image of the intruder, which are visually distractive in the investigation of the video images. Moreover, the existence of motional background objects often causes faulty detections in automated security monitoring systems.
In view of the above-mentioned drawback of the prior art, there exists a need in security monitoring systems for a new video segmentation technology that can erase all background objects, including static background scene and motional background objects, while detecting and displaying only the target moving objects.